Shop Management by Frederick Winslow Taylor (top books to read .TXT) 📕

(l) MESSENGER SYSTEM AND POST OFFICE DELIVERY.

The messenger system should be thoroughly organized and records kept

showing which of the boys are the most efficient. This should afford one

of the best opportunities for selecting boys fit to be taught trades, as

apprentices or otherwise. There should be a regular half hourly post

office delivery system for collecting and distributing routine reports

and records and messages in no especial hurry throughout the works.

(m) EMPLOYMENT BUREAU.

The selection of the men who are employed to fill vacancies or new

positions should receive the most careful thought and attention and

should be under the supervision of a competent man who will inquire into

the experience and especial fitness and character of applicants and keep

constantly revised lists of men suitable for the various positions in

the shop. In this section of the planning room. an individual record of

each of the men in the works can well be kept showing his punctuality,

absence without excuse, violation of shop rules, spoiled work or damage

to machines or tools, as well as his skill at various kinds of work;

average earnings, and other good qualities for the use of this

department as well as the shop disciplinarian.

(n) THE SHOP DISCIPLINARIAN.

This man may well be closely associated with the employment bureau and,

if the works is not too large, the two functions can be performed by the

same man. The knowledge of character and of the qualities needed for

various positions acquired in disciplining the men should be useful in

selecting them for employment. This man should, of course, consult

constantly with the various foremen and bosses, both in his function as

disciplinarian arid in the employment of men.

(o) A MUTUAL ACCIDENT INSURANCE ASSOCIATION.

A mutual accident insurance association should be established, to which

the company contributes as well as the men. The object of this

association is twofold: first the relief of men who are injured, and

second, an opportunity of returning to the workmen all fines which are

imposed upon them in disciplining them, and for damage to company’s

property or work spoiled.

(p) RUSH ORDER DEPARTMENT.

Hurrying through parts which have been spoiled or have developed

defects, and also special repair orders for customers, should receive

the attention of one man.

(q) IMPROVEMENT OF SYSTEM OR PLANT.

One man should be especially charged with the work of improvement in the

system and in the running of the plant.

The type of organization described in the foregoing paragraphs has such

an appearance of complication and there are so many new positions

outlined in the planning room which do not exist even in a well managed

establishment of the old school, that it seems desirable to again call

attention to the fact that, with the exception of the study of unit

times and one or two minor functions, each item of work which is

performed in the planning room with the superficial appearance of great

complication must also be performed by the workmen in the shop under the

old type of management, with its single cheap foreman and the appearance

of great simplicity. In the first case, however, the work is done by an

especially trained body of men who work together like a smoothly running

machine, and in the second by a much larger number of men very poorly

trained and ill-fitted for this work, and each of whom while doing it is

taken away from some other job for which he is well trained. The work

which is now done by one sewing machine, intricate in its appearance,

was formerly done by a number of women with no apparatus beyond a simple

needle and thread.

There is no question that the cost of production is lowered by

separating the work of planning and the brain work as much as possible

from the manual labor. When this is done, however, it is evident that

the brain workers must be given sufficient work to keep them fully busy

all the time. They must not be allowed to stand around for a

considerable part of their time waiting for their particular kind of

work to come along, as is so frequently the case.

The belief is almost universal among manufacturers that for economy the

number of brain workers, or non-producers, as they are called, should be

as small as possible in proportion to the number of producers, i.e.,

those who actually work with their hands. An examination of the most

successful establishments will, however, show that the reverse is true.

A number of years ago the writer made a careful study of the proportion

of producers to non-producers in three of the largest and most

successful companies in the world, who were engaged in doing the same

work in a general way. One of these companies was in France, one in

Germany, and one in the United States. Being to a certain extent rivals

in business and situated in different countries, naturally neither one

had anything to do with the management of the other. In the course of

his investigation, the writer found that the managers had never even

taken the trouble to ascertain the exact proportion of non-producers to

producers in their respective works; so that the organization of each

company was an entirely independent evolution.

By non-producers the writer means such employees as all of the general

officers, the clerks, foremen, gang bosses, watchmen, messenger boys,

draftsmen, salesmen, etc.; and by “producers,” only those who actually

work with their hands.

In the French and German works there was found to be in each case one

non-producer to between six and seven producers, and in the American

works one non-producer to about seven producers. The writer found that

in the case of another works, doing the same kind of business and whose

management was notoriously bad, the proportion of non-producers to

producers was one non-producer to about eleven producers. These

companies all had large forges, foundries, rolling mills and machine

shops turning out a miscellaneous product, much of which was machined.

They turned out a highly wrought, elaborate and exact finished product,

and did an extensive engineering and miscellaneous machine construction

business.

In the case of a company doing a manufacturing business with a uniform

and simple product for the maximum economy, the number of producers to

each non-producer would of course be larger. No manager need feel

alarmed then when he sees the number of non-producers increasing in

proportion to producers, providing the non-producers are busy all of

their time, and providing, of course, that in each case they are doing

efficient work.

It would seem almost unnecessary to dwell upon the desirability of

standardizing, not only all of the tools, appliances and implements

throughout the works and office, but also the methods to be used in the

multitude of small operations which are repeated day after day. There

are many good managers of the old school, however, who feel that this

standardization is not only unnecessary but that it is undesirable,

their principal reason being that it is better to allow each workman to

develop his individuality by choosing the particular implements and

methods which suit him best. And there is considerable weight in this

contention when the scheme of management is to allow each workman to do

the work as he pleases and hold him responsible for results.

Unfortunately, in ninety-nine out of a hundred such cases only the first

part of this plan is carried out. The workman chooses his own methods

and implements, but is not held in any strict sense accountable unless

the quality of the work is so poor or the quantity turned out is so

small as to almost amount to a scandal. In the type of management

advocated by the writer, this complete standardization of all details

and methods is not only desirable but absolutely indispensable as a

preliminary to specifying the time in which each operation shall be

done, and then insisting that it shall be done within the time allowed.

Neglecting to take the time and trouble to thoroughly standardize all of

such methods and details is one of the chief causes for setbacks and

failure in introducing this system. Much better results can be attained,

even if poor standards be adopted, than can be reached if some of a

given class of implements are the best of their kind while others are

poor. It is uniformity that is required. Better have them uniformly

second class than mainly first with some second and some third class

thrown in at random. In the latter case the workmen will almost always

adopt the pace which conforms to the third class instead of the first or

second. In fact, however, it is not a matter involving any great expense

or time to select in each case standard implements which shall be nearly

the best or the best of their kinds. The writer has never failed to make

enormous gains in the economy of running by the adoption of standards.

It was in the course of making a series of experiments with various air

hardening tool steels with a view to adopting a standard for the

Bethlehem works that Mr. J. Maunsel White, together with the writer,

discovered the Taylor-White process of treating tool steel, which marks

a distinct improvement in the art. The fact that this improvement was

made not by manufacturers of tool steel, but in the course of the

adoption of standards, shows both the necessity and fruitfulness of

methodical and careful investigation in the choice of much neglected

details. The economy to be gained through the adoption of uniform

standards is hardly realized at all by the managers of this country. No

better illustration of this fact is needed than that of the present

condition of the cutting tools used throughout the machine shops of the

United States. Hardly a shop can be found in which tools made from a

dozen different qualities of steel are not used side by side, in many

cases with little or no means of telling one make from another; and in

addition, the shape of the cutting edge of the tool is in most cases

left to the fancy of each individual workman. When one realizes that the

cutting speed of the best treated air hardening steel is for a given

depth of cut, feed and quality of metal being cut, say sixty feet per

minute, while with the same shaped tool made from the best carbon tool

steel and with the same conditions, the cutting speed will be only

twelve feet per minute, it becomes apparent how little the necessity for

rigid standards is appreciated.

Let us take another illustration. The machines of the country are still

driven by belting. The motor drive, while it is coming, is still in the

future. There is not one establishment in one hundred that does not

leave the care and tightening of the belts to the judgment of the

individual who runs the machine, although it is well known to all who

have given any study to the subject that the most skilled machinist

cannot properly tighten a belt without the use of belt clamps fitted

with spring balances to properly register the tension. And the writer

showed in a paper entitled “Notes on Belting” presented to The American

Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1893, giving the results of an

experiment tried on all of the belts in a machine shop and extending

through nine years, in which every detail of the care and tightening and

tension of each belt was recorded, that belts properly cared for

according to a standard method by a trained laborer would average twice

the pulling power and only a fraction of the interruptions to

manufacture of those tightened according to the usual methods.